


Pianissimo

by orphan_account



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/M, High School AU, Oneshot, Prompt: Fate, Rivetra Week, Short & Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-06
Updated: 2014-08-06
Packaged: 2018-02-12 00:07:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2088135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pianist Levi meets poet Petra.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pianissimo

Petra loves the auditorium because it’s huge and quiet and empty, and the space allows her mind to expand and fold around her words as she scribbles on a memo pad in colorful gel ink. It’s the only place on campus that lets her really think.

Levi needs the auditorium because it’s the only place in the whole academy with a Steinway & Son’s piano. The first time he goes up to play, he notices a girl sitting near the back, but ignores her. She can write anywhere, but this is the only concert piano he has access to.

The first few days he comes to play while she’s there, Petra fumes silently in the back, and all the phrases she holds in her head throughout the day evaporate before they can make it onto the page. His playing is senseless, the songs jarringly different in style as he jumps from one piece to the next. He’s talented but there’s no narrative to his playing and it irks her immensely, because what does art  _mean_  if it doesn’t add up to something beautiful?

She refuses to give up her spot ( _that would be losing_ ) and instead stubbornly scrawls random phrases until her pad is marked in disjointed rainbow sentences.

If he cares about her insistent presence, he never shows it.

One day Levi sits down at the piano, black and white keys staring starkly back at him. He doesn’t have any piece in mind today, but that’s okay, because he should have begun his senior composition project weeks ago.

He starts with an emotion in mind and lets his hands do the rest. It’s slow work, and sometimes days pass without any progress. Often his fingers feel heavy, unsure, though other times they rush over the keys in a searing flash of inspiration.

Weeks flow by and the music grows beneath his fingers, gaining steadily as he becomes more sure of himself. Petra watches, listens carefully, as he starts stringing together separate runs into one coherent melody.  _Yes,_ _this_ _makes sense_ , she thinks.

The music takes up permanent residence within her. She brushes her teeth and thinks of his graceful hands soaring over the keyboard. She taps her pencil to his rhythms during math class, missing every equation on the board.  She writes lines and lines of verses, furious and tender by turn, as he plays out the finale around the end of the third month since they began sharing the auditorium.

Levi plays as though gripped in desperation, as if each time he starts again is do-or-die. His ambition is a blade above the neck, demanding perfection until it comes as easily and naturally as his own panting breath. He always finishes with fingers suspended above the keyboard for a few seconds, stunned at his own power. Then he lowers his hands, gripping the bench as satisfaction washes over him in a cool rush.  

And then he plays again.

The last day of the semester, Levi runs through the piece thirty-seven times before getting up to stretch. Pulling his right arm across his chest, he feels a light tap on the shoulder and spins around to see-

-the girl who always sits in the back, except now she’s right in front of him, holding out a piece of paper and smiling shyly. He takes it, scans it, and the words are strange and beautiful but he doesn’t know why he’s holding them for her.

She starts humming a very familiar tune and then he realizes: she wrote the lyrics to his own song.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Tumblr's Rivetra Week, answering the prompt "Fate."


End file.
